How to set up local .bit resolving?

[domob]

Actually it is a shame that I haven't yet set up my system (or at least browser) to support .bit domains, but in fact I haven't. The problem is that I don't want to use a third-party DNS server and instead have everything working locally - and although that is in some sense the whole point of namecoin, it seems incredibly hard to do just that.

What is the best and easiest way to configure at least Iceweasel (Firefox) to resolve .bit domains (preferrably with connection to them over Tor afterwards)? I tried out using "ncproxy", but I'm not sure if it is any more developed.... Furthermore it works with some sites but not others (my domob.bit for instance does not work, while explorer.bit or dot-bit.bit are fine).

With some search I found NmcSocks, but this also looks abandoned - is it worthwhile to try it out? In fact I would think that maybe the easiest way would be to use a Firefox add-on like Convergence. Especially when you can use it to check the TLS fingerprints at the same time. Why not use it also to resolve .bit domains when installed? It has to talk to nmcontrol anyway - wouldn't it be easy to just use it to get IP addresses, too?

What do you think? Or do I simply miss some easy option to make it work? I would be delighted to have .bit domains plus Convergence for TLS checks finally working.

[biolizard89]

Actually it is a shame that I haven't yet set up my system (or at least browser) to support .bit domains, but in fact I haven't. The problem is that I don't want to use a third-party DNS server and instead have everything working locally - and although that is in some sense the whole point of namecoin, it seems incredibly hard to do just that.

What is the best and easiest way to configure at least Iceweasel (Firefox) to resolve .bit domains (preferrably with connection to them over Tor afterwards)? I tried out using "ncproxy", but I'm not sure if it is any more developed.... Furthermore it works with some sites but not others (my domob.bit for instance does not work, while explorer.bit or dot-bit.bit are fine).

With some search I found NmcSocks, but this also looks abandoned - is it worthwhile to try it out? In fact I would think that maybe the easiest way would be to use a Firefox add-on like Convergence. Especially when you can use it to check the TLS fingerprints at the same time. Why not use it also to resolve .bit domains when installed? It has to talk to nmcontrol anyway - wouldn't it be easy to just use it to get IP addresses, too?

What do you think? Or do I simply miss some easy option to make it work? I would be delighted to have .bit domains plus Convergence for TLS checks finally working.

I'm actually in the process of adding .bit DNS resolution support to Convergence at the moment. Some proof-of-concept code is at https://github.com/JeremyRand/Convergen ... resolution . At the moment it's not suitable for end users, but hopefully I'll finish it up in the near future and make a release.

NmcSocks is abandoned, and when I tried it out, it would crash after a few minutes of browsing. Your results may vary.

[domob]

I'm actually in the process of adding .bit DNS resolution support to Convergence at the moment. Some proof-of-concept code is at https://github.com/JeremyRand/Convergen ... resolution . At the moment it's not suitable for end users, but hopefully I'll finish it up in the near future and make a release.

Great! That seems like a very good fit. If you weren't yet working on it, I would have considered giving it a try myself, because I think that exactly this is needed for better acceptance of namecoin domains. Thanks for your work!

[Pagel1928]

An alternative is to use nmcontrol's DNS server functionality:

https://github.com/khalahan/nmcontrol

You just run namecoin, run nmcontrol, and use the local dns server that is running.

[biolizard89]

An alternative is to use nmcontrol's DNS server functionality:

https://github.com/khalahan/nmcontrol

You just run namecoin, run nmcontrol, and use the local dns server that is running.

Yep, nmcontrol's DNS works pretty well, although it doesn't (yet) support TLS (I gather you're working on that).

[virtual_master]

Khal's proxy on 178.32.31.43:8888 doesn't work now.

178.63.16.21 works for .bit redirections.

[domob]

Thanks for the further answers, I'm now using Convergence for Namecoin to browse .bit, this is all I want (at least for now) and it supports TLS.